U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Shay Bilchik, Administrator February 2000 #01

Vietnamese Youth Gang Involvement

by Phelan A. Wyrick

The city of Westminster in Orange County, CA, has completed a

study funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention (OJJDP) that examined factors related to gang

involvement by Vietnamese American youth. It is one of only a

few systematic quantitative studies on this topic. This Fact Sheet

summarizes findings from the study’s final report, Cultural

Explanations for Vietnamese Youth Involvement in Street Gangs.

Westminster has a population of 86,000. Approximately 25

percent of the residents are Asians; most are Vietnamese refugees

who live in or near an area known as Little Saigon. City law

enforcement officials attribute as much as 17 percent of all

juvenile delinquency and 48 percent of all Asian delinquency

in Westminster to gang-involved Asian youth.

Researchers interviewed both gang- and nongang-involved male

Vietnamese youth between ages 11 and 19. A parent of each youth

was also interviewed separately. A total of 233 parent-child pairs

were interviewed in either English or Vietnamese, according to

each person’s preference. All participants lived in or near Little

Saigon. By interviewing both gang and nongang youth, researchers

were able to examine factors that distinguished the two groups.

Defining Gang Involvement

Because there is no consensus on a specific definition of gang

involvement, researchers used two independent definitions to

differentiate between gang and nongang youth. The first definition, which is more traditional, categorizes a youth as gang

involved if he admits to being involved in a gang or is identified

as a gang member by a criminal justice agency (e.g., on a police

crime report). The second definition, called social centrality,

classifies a youth as gang involved if he identifies at least one

gang member among his peers who provides core social support.

This definition is broader than most. However, it has the possible

advantage of identifying youth in the early stages of gang involvement or who are gang involved but do not readily identify

themselves as gang members and have not been identified as such

by law enforcement.

Of the 233 youth in the study, 29 (12 percent) were classified as

gang involved using the traditional definition and 83 (36 percent)

were classified as gang involved using the social centrality

definition. Three out of four youth classified as gang involved

under the traditional definition also fell under the social centrality

definition. Across seven categories of offending, youth identified

as gang involved under both definitions reported higher levels of

delinquency than did nongang-involved youth. However, youth

identified under the social centrality definition reported lower

levels of delinquency than did the group identified under the

traditional definition.

Hypothesis Testing

With the help of focus groups composed of experts in Vietnamese

culture and experts in youth gangs, researchers developed hypotheses concerning both cultural and noncultural aspects of the

etiology of youth gang involvement. They tested three cultural

and five noncultural hypotheses using both the traditional and

social centrality definitions of gang involvement as dependent

variables. Cultural hypotheses generally focused on cultural

identity issues and the acquisition, acceptance, and rejection of

Vietnamese and American cultural identities. For example, one

cultural hypothesis suggests that youth with low Vietnamese

identities and low American identities are more likely to become

involved in gangs than youth with strong identities in either

culture. One of the noncultural hypotheses suggests that youth

who perceive that joining a gang has greater benefits than costs

will become involved with gangs.

Predictors of Vietnamese Youth Gang

Involvement

Analyses of these and other hypotheses indicated that noncultural

explanations are more predictive of gang involvement than

cultural explanations. Contrary to popular belief, the study found

that Vietnamese youth who reject their Asian identity and find it

difficult to adopt an American identity are not more likely than

other Vietnamese youth to become involved with gangs. The

belief that gang involvement is a way for a youth to obtain an

identity when it is difficult to obtain it through family and social

environment was also not supported by the results of this study.

In fact, none of the cultural or noncultural hypotheses were fully

supported. Instead, researchers identified two main factors that

predict Vietnamese youth gang involvement: progang attitudes

and exposure to gangs in the neighborhood. Four predictors were
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The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component

of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of

Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

found to influence the development of progang attitudes: negative

school attitude, family conflict, poor social integration (i.e., a

generalized sense of alienation), and perceived benefits of gang

membership.

These findings suggest that while services focusing solely on

cultural identity issues may have benefits, they will not be

effective in preventing or reducing gang involvement by Vietnamese youth. Instead, services should focus on improving youth

attitudes about school, reducing feelings of alienation, and

modifying perceptions that gangs are beneficial to their members.

Furthermore, services will prevent gang involvement if they

address family conflict and provide some buffer against the

influence of neighborhood gangs.

For Further Information

The final report, Cultural Explanations for Vietnamese Youth

Involvement in Street Gangs (prepared under OJJDP grant number

95–JD–FX–0014), is available online (ojjdp.ncjrs.org/pubs/

gang.html#180955) from the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse:

Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse

800–638–8736; 301–519–5212 (fax)

askncjrs@ncjrs.org (e-mail)

www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org (Internet)

Phelan A. Wyrick is a Program Manager in the Research and Program

Development Division of OJJDP. He was formerly a Research Associate

in the Westminster Police Department, where he served as project staff

on this study.